Not until the night of Nov. 6 will Ohioans know if the state’s presidential vote will be
razor-close. But it’s obvious, as it has been for a long time, that both parties think it will be,
and that Democrats, especially, want to be prepared for that.

Also in play, as previously observed here, seems to be an Object Two – “building a record” for
post-presidential-election Ohio recounts or lawsuits. And you know Ohio is super-close already;
otherwise, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney wouldn’t be here so much.

So Ohio could see the kind of wrangling that erupted after the Bush-Gore election 12 years ago.
In that case, Ohio Democrats would surely brandish pre-Nov. 6 lawsuits (and victories) to prove
(alleged) GOP vote-rigging in Ohio.

Democrats also appear to have an Object Three: a calculated bid to trash Republican Secretary of
State Jon Husted as an investment in future campaigns.

Husted, of suburban Dayton, once speaker of the Ohio House, is now age 45. He is the
second-youngest among Ohio’s Republican statewide elected executive officials. (The youngest is
state Treasurer Josh Mandel, 35, of Lyndhurst, who is running this year against Democratic Sen.
Sherrod Brown of Avon.)

Down the road, Husted very likely will be a candidate for higher office. True, assuming
Republican Gov. John Kasich runs for and wins re-election in 2014, Husted couldn’t run for governor
until 2018. That’s six years away. Even so, Husted would only be 51 then. Republican James A.
Rhodes was 53 when he won the first of his four terms as Ohio governor.

Democrats are trying to portray Husted as if he were some Mississippi sheriff in the terrible
decades Southern black voters had to endure before 1965’s Voting Rights Act (whose authors included
U.S. Rep. William M. McCulloch, a Piqua Republican, and himself once speaker of the Ohio
House).

What Democrats don’t say: Husted opposes a strict voter-photo ID law — one that doesn’t let
voters use a backup nonphoto ID (example: Social Security numbers). But House Republicans ignored
Husted. In 2011, they sent the Senate a photo-only voter-ID bill. On that facet of election law,
Husted has more in common with Democrats than with Republicans.

That said, is Husted a
Republican secretary of state? Yes, just as Sherrod Brown (in the 1980s) and Jennifer
Brunner (2007 through 2010) were
Democratic secretaries of state.

Maybe Ohioans will someday decide to elect secretaries of state the way voters elect judges:
without a party label accompanying a candidate’s name on the ballot.

But electing judges on an unlabeled ballot doesn’t mean Democratic judges are no longer
Democrats, or that Republican judges are no longer Republicans. It just means that, 100 years ago,
some Ohio reformers tried to take the politics out of politics. That was impossible then. It’s
impossible now.

Footnote: Last week’s column noted that Obama has been on Ohio campuses so much he should be an
honorary Bowling Green Falcon, Cleveland State Viking, Kent State Golden Flash or Ohio State
Buckeye.

The president may also qualify as an honorary Ohio University Bobcat. He spoke Wednesday on OU’s
College Green. Obama’s exuberant audience was estimated to number 14,000 people. Of course, for a
Democratic president to visit Athens is a little like carrying coals to Newcastle — if, that is,
environmentalists would let any Democrat near the stuff.

Thomas Suddes is a former legislative reporter with The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and writes
from Ohio University.